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Over the last months, Quocirca has been blogging for Silver Peak System s independent blog site, http://www.WANSpeak.com. Here, the blog pieces are brought together as a single report.
January 2014
In the continuing series of WAN Speak aggregated blog articles from the Quocirca team covering a range of topics.
Clive Longbottom Quocirca Ltd Tel : +44 118 948 3360 Email: Clive.Longbottom@Quocirca.com
Its Here: The MidRange Enterprise Storage Tsunami Can Vendors Help Your Technical Strategy? SDN An Apology
Vendors get a lot of stick (including from me) for misleading their prospects and customers. Maybe it is time that the vendors upped their game and worked with them in order to held define a suitable future strategy that works for all concerned? SDN has been touted as the silver bullet to end all silver bullets. However, as implementations start to be seen, issues have come to the fore and it is time to apologise for being a full-on SDN supporter. Possibly. Youve decided that cloud is for you. All your apps are now virtualised, and you are ready to flip the switch. Except for that pesky problem of all that data. Co-locational data centres seem to be doing well which shouldnt be much of a surprise. However, not all data centres are the same and the future will see the evolution and maturation of a new beast: the cloud broker and aggregator. The good news is computer and consumer displays are getting better with higher definitions. The bad news is this could have major impacts on an organisations networks. How? If the quality is there, users will utilise it. As EE launches super-high speed wireless broadband in the UK, does this start to challenge all that copper and fibre that has been laid down? Could super-high speed wireless be the future at least for specific situations? As problems with the idea of software defined networks (SDN) come to the surface, service providers have decided that they need to have something a little bit more focused to their needs. Hence network function virtualisation (NFV). Is this a binary battle to the death?
The Future Is Crisper And Clearer Wires? So Last Year, Darling! NFV & SDN: You Can Go Your Own Way? How the Dark Side is Creating the Notwork Hub a Dub Dub 3 Things in a Tub?
Spam email may just appear to be an easily dealt with problem, where device- or server-based software can eliminate a large percentage of the problem. However, nipping spam in the bud closer to the point of creation could have major beneficial impacts on the internet itself.
The Internet of Things (IoT) wants to break free of constrained pilot projects, but could find itself a victim of its own success. Three things need to be considered first and by getting these right, the IoT stands a much better chance of success.
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Figure 1
OK it is equally difficult for a vendor to see the future in any clarity as it is for an end-user organisation, but they can at least provide a view on what they believe could happen. Figure 1 shows Quocircas approach to creating a vision, which we call a Hi-Lo Road Map. This works in the following way: If an end-user asks a vendor what functionality they have right now, the vendor can only offer what they have on their books at the moment. This gives a base point to work from of functionality against time or point 0,0 on the graph. However, in six months time, the vendor has the capability to change the functionality of their products. Depending on the financial climate, the vendor may have little money to invest in Quocirca 2014 -6-
SDN An Apology
OK. I admit it. When I first started looking into SDN, I fell for i t. Hook, line, sinker in fact, the fishing rod and the fisherman as well. The simplicity of it all was so dazzling that I suspended my normal cynicism and went for it. SDN was going to change the world Cisco, Juniper, and other intelligent switch manufacturers were dead, and wed all be using $50 boxes within months as all the intelligence went to the software layer. Well, hopefully I wasnt that bad, and I have raised plenty of issues along the way, but I did miss one tiny little problem. Im OK with the idea of multiple planes, and Im OK with two o f them being as defined within the SDN environment. However, there is one that still niggles: the control plane. The data plane has to stay down at the hardware level. If it wasnt there, then the data couldnt be moved around. This could be filed under a statement of the obvious. The management layer can, and should, be moved to the software layer. The rules and policies to do with how data should be dealt with are better served by being up in the software layer, as a lot of the actions are dependent on what is happening at that level. Great we have two layers sorted. Now the thorny issue of the control plane. With SDN this is meant to be abstracted to the software layer too, but it just wont work unless there is a great deal of intelligence at t he hardware layer. However, the hardware layer is meant to have little to no intelligence in an SDN environment. The problem is that if every packet has to be dealt with via the control plane, then it needs to jump from the hardware to the software layer and back down again, introducing large amounts of latency into the system. This may not be a problem for many commercial data centres, but it is a complete no-no for service providers. So, to get around the latency issue, only those packets that need action taking on them should be sent up to the software layer. This could work, but something has to decide what packets should go up to the software layer. This would be something along the lines of, oh, I dont know how about a switch operating system and some clever ASICs or FPGAs? And while were at it, we may as well get rid of that last problem of SDN latency by not sending any of the packets to the software layer and do everything at the hardware layer it is far more efficient and effective. In other words, a switch as we already know it.
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A couple of ways around this include the unlikely one of shutting down the application that is creating the data for the period of time that the data transfer is taking place. This has the obvious, and unwelcome, side effect of halting business. No the main way of dealing with this is to iterate the transfer at a delta level. Assume that you start with 10Tb of data, with each day creating 1% more data (so, 100Gb). Assume that the original transfer of data to the cloud takes 1 day. The original data transfer therefore is of the original 10Tb but this leaves you with yesterdays data, not todays. You now have 100Gb of delta data to transfer across this is not as fast a task per byte as was the original transfer, as comparisons have to be carried out against what is already there and what has changed. For the sake of argument, lets say that this 1% extra data takes 10% of the time to move across. Quocirca 2014 -8-
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The main thing holding the IoT back has been a mix of cost (who wants to embed a $10 sensor into a $5 piece of equipment?) and standards (how should data be formatted in order that the billions of connected items can all speak a lingua franca?). However, costs are falling, and xml and other data formatting standards are chipping away at the latter issue. Could we finally be ready for the IoT to become a reality? Certainly, with the likes of Google Glass and other wearable technology, we seem to be well on the way to the IoT being there in some form today is there something that will prevent it from accelerating and becoming ubiquitous? Heres what Quocircas analysts believe are the three most pressing issues: 1) Chattiness consider a smart electrical grid network. Every electrical item within a house or business premise is part of the IoT, reporting back to utility providers information on usage. This data can also be used by remote monitors who can advise when an item is about to breakdown based on monitoring current draw, for example, or by the house or business owner who wants to be able to see just what power is being drawn at any one time, and apply controls. This is great except for the volumes of small data packets flying around all over the place. Such high volume chatter could bring networks to their knees. Security opening up so many connected devices to the internet could provide more vectors of attack for blackhats. You probably wouldnt be that bothered if someone broke into the data from your fridge and found that you had a secret stash of chocolate bars, but you may be a bit more worried if the data from your CCTV security systems was compromised. Value although pretty much anything can be connected to the internet, is there any real value in doing so? Lighting, heating, entertainment systems, cookers and so on may make sense where a householder can get them set just as needed while they return from work is one thing an internet connected toilet seat (as can be obtained from Japan) may not offer quite so much obvious value.
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If the IoT is to be implemented as an anything-connected-to-anything mesh, we can expect it to be a complete mess and for problems to occur all over the place. If instead we hub the IoT, with a house having intelligent machines that aggregate and filter the data to identify what is a real event and what is just noise, then far less traffic will need to be transported over the public internet and security can be applied at a more value-based level against only the data that needs it. This may involve the use of programmable micro-computers, such as the Raspberry Pi, and will also require embedded data filtering along the line of data leak prevention (DLP), as seen from the likes of Symantec and CA, and contextuallyaware security from the likes of LogRhythm and EMC/RSA can help in dealing with IoT data in a more local environment. Combine this with intelligent routing and WAN compression, and the data volumes start to look a little more controllable. If left uncontrolled, the IoT will be a case of pouring more data into a sea of similar data and trying to make sense of it. By applying intelligent hubs, the data is more akin to being added to a small tub: this is easier to deal with, and only what is really important then needs to be let out through the plug into the greater internet sea.
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REPORT NOTE: This report has been written independently by Quocirca Ltd to provide an overview of the issues facing organisations seeking to maximise the effectiveness of todays dynamic workforce. The report draws on Quocircas extensive knowledge of the technology and business arenas, and provides advice on the approach that organisations should take to create a more effective and efficient environment for future growth.
About Quocirca
Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry and its real usage in the markets. Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption the personal and political aspects of an organisations environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables Quocirca to provide advice on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises.
Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocircas mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time. Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community. Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise that ITC holds for business. Quocircas clients include Oracle, IBM, CA, O2, T -Mobile, HP, Xerox, Ricoh and Symantec, along with other large and medium sized vendors, service providers and more specialist firms. Details of Quocircas work and the services it offers can be found at http://www.quocirca.com Disclaimer: This report has been written independently by Quocirca Ltd. During the preparation of this report, Quocirca may have used a number of sources for the information and views provided. Although Quocirca has attempted wherever possible to validate the information received from each vendor, Quocirca cannot be held responsible for any errors in information received in this manner. Although Quocirca has taken what steps it can to ensure that the information provided in this report is true and reflects real market conditions, Quocirca cannot take any responsibility for the ultimate reliability of the details presented. Therefore, Quocirca expressly disclaims all warranties and claims as to the validity of the data presented here, including any and all consequential losses incurred by any organisation or individual taking any action based on such data and advice. All brand and product names are recognised and acknowledged as trademarks or service marks of their respective holders.